New York City Comptroller Stringer, Investment Advisor to Retirement Funds, Wants More Diversity Disclosures From Dupont and Union Pacific

Comptroller Stringer. Photo: Lanqui Doodle. Wikimedia Commons.

New York City Comptroller Scott M. Stringer and three major New York City retirement funds want major corporations such as Dupont and Union Pacific to go beyond condemning racism by releasing documents showing diversity in the companies. 

Stringer, the New York City Employees’ Retirement System, Teachers Retirement System of the City of New York, and New York City Board of Education Retirement System, are holding the CEOs of DuPont and Union Pacific Corporation accountable for their public statements condemning racism and the need for inclusion. At the companies’ upcoming annual shareholder meetings, Stringer and the Retirement Systems will urge shareholders to vote for their proposal calling on the companies to publicly release their EEO-1 report which breaks down their respective workforces by standardized categories of race, ethnicity, and gender.

DuPont and Union Pacific Corporation--which both announced in June that the companies value diversity--are opposed to these efforts.

“It is not enough to condemn racism in words, corporate America must back up its stated commitment to racial equity and diversity with concrete action, and we will hold companies accountable,” Stringer said. “We launched this campaign back in July to call on companies to publicly disclose workforce demographics by race, gender, and ethnicity – including and most notably those in leadership and senior management positions. Companies are strongest when they reflect the full diversity of our workforce. The disclosure we are requesting provides critical information that will enable shareowners to hold these companies accountable. Together with the New York City Retirement Systems, we will continue expanding this important campaign to hold companies accountable in order to create meaningful, systemic change in corporate America and a more just society.” 

DuPont’s annual shareholder meeting is scheduled for April 28, and Union Pacific's is scheduled for May 13. Proposals are expected to go to a vote later this year at the other unresponsive companies, including American Express, Procter & Gamble, and Walgreens Boots Alliance.

The Consolidated EEO-1 Report is the “gold standard” for comparable diversity disclosure and will enable investors to evaluate the performance of portfolio companies in terms of their ability to hire, retain, and promote employees of color and women. In December 2020, Stringer and the Retirement Systems submitted shareholder proposals to DuPont, Union Pacific, and 22 other S&P 100 companies requesting EEO-1 disclosures. In their proposals, the Comptroller and the Systems request disclosure of the Consolidated EEO-1 Report itself, which provides the raw number for each employment category. This disclosure gives investors and the public a comprehensive breakdown of a company’s U.S. workforce by race, ethnicity, and gender according to 10 employment categories, including, importantly, senior management, defined to incorporate individuals within two reporting levels of the CEO.
 
All of the companies that received proposals were unresponsive to a prior request as part of a national campaign launched in July 2020 by Comptroller Stringer and the Retirement Systems which called on 67 S&P 100 companies to match their public statements in support of racial equality, diversity and inclusion with concrete action by publicly disclosing their annual EEO-1 workforce demographic data. Prior to the launch of the Comptroller’s campaign, only 14 S&P 100 companies disclosed their Consolidated EEO-1 Report. As of today, a substantial majority of S&P 100 companies disclose, or have committed to disclose their EEO-1 data, including 62 S&P companies that committed to disclose as a result of the push made by Comptroller Stringer and the NYC Funds:

• 3M Company

• Abbott Laboratories

• AbbVie Inc.

• Altria Group, Inc.

• Amazon.com, Inc.

• American International Group, Inc.

• American Tower Corporation (REIT)

• Amgen Inc.

• AT&T Inc.

• Biogen Inc.

• BlackRock, Inc.

• Bristol-Myers Squibb Company

• Capital One Financial Corporation

• Caterpillar Inc.

• Chevron Corporation

• Citigroup Inc.

• Comcast Corporation

• ConocoPhillips

• CVS Health Corporation

• Dow Inc.

• Duke Energy Corporation

• Eli Lilly and Company

• Exelon Corporation

• FedEx Corporation

• Ford Motor Company

• General Motors Company

• Gilead Sciences, Inc.

• International Business Machines Corporation

• Johnson & Johnson

• JPMorgan Chase & Co.

• Lockheed Martin Corporation

• Lowe's Companies, Inc.

• Mastercard Incorporated

• McDonald's Corporation

• Medtronic plc

• Merck

• MetLife, Inc.

• Mondelez International, Inc.

• Morgan Stanley

• Netflix, Inc.

• NIKE, Inc.

• PayPal Holdings, Inc.

• PepsiCo, Inc.

• Pfizer Inc.

• QUALCOMM Incorporated

• Starbucks Corporation

• Target Corporation

• The Allstate Corporation

• The Boeing Company

• The Coca-Cola Company

• The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc.

• The Home Depot, Inc.

• The Kraft Heinz Company

• The Southern Company

• The Walt Disney Company

• U.S. Bancorp

• United Parcel Service, Inc.

• UnitedHealth Group Incorporated

• Verizon Communications Inc.

• Visa Inc.

• Walmart Inc.

• Wells Fargo & Company

 
To read the proposals Stringer and the Retirement Systems submitted to DuPont and Union Pacific Corporation, click here and here.
 
Stringer serves as the investment advisor to, and custodian and a trustee of, the New York City Retirement Systems.